Baby Angels
by alicat54
Summary: "It took Dean six months to stop talking aloud to Sam after he left for Stanford, so Dean tried not to let it bother him when he occasionally slipped up." Where do baby angels come from? Well, they end up on a playground in Dean's dreams. Parental Dean
1. Chapter 1

====== Baby Angels========

"Grace ground zero is pure creation."- Anna, Supernatural episode 4.10

...spn...

It took Dean six months to stop talking aloud to Sam after he left for Stanford, so Dean tried not to let it bother him when he occasionally slipped up.

Ben would shrug and continue with whatever he was doing. Lisa would give him a sad look of understanding, but never mentioned it or the nightmares which sometimes woke them both at night.

It was always the same nightmare too; the one where Sam ran away from home and a terrified Dean searched high and low for him. In the dream, Dean searches places which he didn't know existed as a teenager like the human roach motel set up by those pagans, a garden set in the clouds, and what once looked suspitiously like the gates of hell.

"Sam?" Dream Dean called, searching the graveyard in Detroit. The places he searched were always empty, regardless of what they might have been in real life.

"Sammy where are you?"

Tonight was the exception.

A light brown mop of hair peaked around one of the headstones, brown eyes blinking curiously at him.

"Sam?"

The head pulled back, but Dean was already running towards it.

"Sammy?" he looked behind the granite slab.

A little boy with light brown hair and freckles crouched on the grass, nervously staring at Dean between his fingers as he tried to hide.

Relief rushed through the former hunter and he swept the little boy into his arms. "Sammy I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"You have?" the little boy asked from Dean's shoulder. He couldn't be older than five or six, which was odd because originally Sam had been a teenager when he had run away. Dean assumed it was apart of the dream.

"Of course I have! Do you know how worried I've been? I wasn't just going to leave you out there to fend for yourself!"

"Oh," the boy looked awed.

"Don't you 'oh' me mister. It's my job to protect you, and I can't do that if you keep running!" The kid looked close to tears at the reprimand, and Dean felt like a jerk.

"Hey, it's ok," he rumbled, balancing the kid on his hip the way Lisa showed him that time he babysat. "Let's just go home."

Little Sammy nodded, eyes watery.

In a moment the pair was seated in the back seat in he back of the impala. The scenery flashed by the windows under the rumble of the engine, but there was no one in the driver's seat.

A smile touched the corners of Dean's mouth and he closed his eyes, secure in the knowledge that the little body in his arms would not vanish again.

...spn...

"Well you're awfully chipper this morning," Lisa said over breakfast.

Dean shrugged. "Got a decent night's sleep I guess."

She smiled. "That's great."

...spn...

Dean's dreams had actually been pretty good the past few nights. Dean chalked it up to some psychological mumbo jumbo about dreams and mental well being he once heard Sam babble about after they helped Bobby with a hunt.

No that his dreams had all been gum drops and lollipops, but they weren't bad. Lately they consisted of old memories from when he was a kid.

Like this one.

"Sammy, what are you hiding?"

The miniature version of his brother tucked his hands more firmly behind his back. "Nothing!"

Dean smirked and rolled over on the bed of the generic hotel set around them. Rain thumped against the windows. "Nothing? Really?"

Sammy scuffed his shoe against the faded carpet. "I found a stray outside. Can I keep him?"

"I don't know Sammy, a pet's a big responsibility. Are you up to taking care of it?"

The little boy nodded enthusiastically. "I promise to take good care of him!"

Dean chuckled. Sam always used to pick up animals off the street to bring home, but John had never let him keep any of them. Dean remembered the kitten they had hidden for nearly a week, before their father made them take it to a shelter.

"Ok, but you got to keep him a secret, or he'll get taken away."

Sammy looked horrified.

"So what's his name?" Dean added quickly, trying to distract the distraught child.

"I don't know. What do you think he should be called?"

Dean mentally ran through his box of fake IDs.

"How about John Bonham?"

Dean didn't find it strange that similar variations of this dream replayed themselves periodically in his mind; he just brushed up on his favorite bands and hoped not to run out of naming ideas.

...spn...


	2. Chapter 2

...spn...

Dean's dreams changed from nightmares to his childhood's greatest hits- or at least all the hits which included his little brother.

The time he taught Sammy to shoot and lay salt lines- The time he snuck a box of fireworks for them to set off in a forest- Their first prank war-

It was a relief from the usual string of terror, but they always left the former hunter's brain itching afterwards. Almost like he was forgetting something.

...spn...

"You need to make sure that this bit is screwed down tight, or it will shake loose while you're driving..."

Ben nodded eagerly as Dean explained the inner workings of the truck's engine.

"This piece too it-" the older man cut off, a black smudged hand going to his temple.

"Dean you ok?" Ben asked. The former hunter waved him off.

"I'm fine. Hey, can I trust you to wrap up here? I'm going to see if your mom needs any help with dinner."

Ben shrugged. "Ok."

Dean smiled and walked into the house. He passed the kitchen, where Lisa was busy standing over the stove, and collapsed in the living room.

Lights sparked across Dean's vision as he lay on the couch. He could hear Lisa rummage for her the spatula, but the sound was oddly muffled. He closed his eyes.

...spn...

"Hey Dean!" Sammy sat on a park bench, his too short legs kicking the air, a smile plastered on his face.

Dean looked at him. "You're not my brother, are you."

The boy scrunched his nose, distorting the mosaic of freckles. "No, you named me Little Sammy."

Carefully Dean sat down beside him. "What are you?"

"I'm not a jerk with wings!" came the emphatic reply.

Dean couldn't help it, he laughed.

"What?" the kid said earnestly, "I'm not I swear!"

"Don't swear," Dean smirked, "Not until you're older."

"I'm older than I was when you just said that."

"Old enough to drive."

"But I won't ever need a car!"

Dean's smile fell again. He stared into the childhood face of his brother, painfully aware of the stranger lurking beneath. "Why are you in my head?"

"You brought me here when I didn't have anywhere else to go. You said I could stay, and your head's specially made to fit angels inside too."

Dean tried not to ponder the implications of that. "And the headaches?"

Little Sammy winced. "Sorry. We wanted to learn how to fix the car too."

"We?"

"Me and the Band of Strays."

"There are more of you?"

Sammy frowned. "You said I could keep them."

Dean winced and scratched the side of his head. "Yeah, I guess I did didn't I. How many was that again?"

The boy's face split into a grin. "Want to meet them? They've been wanting to meet you for a really long time, but I didn't know if it was alright."

"Uh, sure."

Little Sammy leapt to his feet and hopped to the playground, pulling Dean with him by the hand.

Dean could see a purple jungle gym he remembered taking Sam to in elementary school, now buried under the bodies and limbs of laughing children, all of whom, Dean noticed, were younger than Little Sammy.

Sammy pointed to a dark haired group on the slide. "That's Ozzy, Geezer, and Tony. The girls with red hair are Jo and Page, and their brother's Jimmy. That's John, Paul, and George on the monkey bars."

A tug on Dean's coat prompted him to look down into a pair of amber green eyes hidden under a mop of sandy hair.

"Hi."

The eye's owner grinned, his tiny face sticky from the candy bar in his hands. "I'm Ringo."

Dean grinned back. "It's nice to meet you."

The child's smile, if anything, became even brighter. He ran off back to his brothers before Dean could say anything else. He shook his head.

"I knew heaven was messed up right now, but I didn't think they would be desperate enough to enlist me as a babysitter."

"What's that?"

Dean looked down. "What's what?"

"Heaven. What's heaven?" Sammy clarified.

"Uh, you don't know what heaven is? Haven't you been there before?"

Sammy shook his head. "I don't think so. Where is it?"

"Look," Dean felt suddenly out of his depth, "if you aren't from heaven, where did you all come from?"

Sammy shrugged. "Fluff Stuff."

Dean stared. "Excuse me?"

"Fluff Stuff. Ringo says it's the stuff our wings our made out of, and he knows even though he's the littlest 'cuz he saw a big angel get turned into Fluff Stuff and go flying all over the place when another big angel killed him."

"And you guys came from that?"

Sammy nodded. "Uh hu. It sticks to stuff and mixes together then when there's enough of it, one of us pops out. That's how I found Bonham."

"Oh." The light headedness was back. Dean felt his knees go weak, and he lowered himself to the ground before they gave out.

"Dean, you ok?" Sammy looked honestly terrified.

"I'm fine," Dean tried to reassure him, but the sunlight was already growing dark and the children's faces blurry.

"Dean?" Sammy called, small hands shaking his shoulder. "Dean?"

...spn...

"Dean?"

Dean opened his eyes. Ben's pale face invaded his vision.

"Hey kiddo."

"I've been trying to wake you up for a while, mom says dinner's ready. Are you alright?"

Dean ran a hand over his face. "Yeah, I'm fine. Tell you mom I'll be there in a minute."

...spn...

"You look older than the last time I saw you."

Sammy, who looked about thirteen now, blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Does time pass more quickly here or something," Dean continued waving around the space of his mind.

Sammy shrugged. "I dunno. You're not here most of the time, so we usually just play in the parks you remember."

"You kids are playing around in my memories?" Dean suddenly felt embarrassed. His mind was not a G rated place.

Sammy wrinkled his nose. "Just the ones from when you were a kid too. When I try to see some of the other ones, the door says I'm not tall enough to get inside."

Dean snorted at his subconscious' child safety locks.

"Yeah, well, I might show you when you're older."

"M'kay."

"So when you're not playing, what else do you do?"

"Well, I teach them what I learn from you."

Dean winced, he wan not an ideal role model for a pack of angels. "Oh like what?"

"Um, like 'Family comes first', and how to shoot and stuff."

"Anything else?" The former hunter felt dread pool in his gut.

"Well, John asked what heaven was yesterday, but I couldn't answer him. So what is heaven?"

Dean ran a hand over his face. "Go-" he glanced at he child next to him, "-sh. How do I explain this. Uh, Heaven is..."

...spn...

"...not all it's cracked up to be," Dean said to the circle of seated cherubs. They were sitting in the empty parking lot Dean once used to teach Sam to shoot.

The little red headed girl, Jo, stuck her hand into the air. "Why?"

"Well for one," Dean replied, "It's run by a bunch of d- big angels who are really mean. And second, all there is to do up there if you're human is relive your life's greatest hits."

"What do the angels do?" this time it was Paul, seated between his two brothers with Ringo in his lap.

Dean shrugged. "Plot how to start the apocalypse."

"What's-"

"That's the end of the world- earth."

The children looked furious.

"Why would they do that? Earth is awesome!" Ozzy shouted to the agreement of his siblings.

"Like I said, they're all mean. Well," Dean amended, "Cas was pretty cool, but only after he left heaven. Now.." He trailed off. "Anyway, so don't be like them."

The group nodded soberly. Dean rubbed his temple, the ever present ache morphing into a dull thud.

"Dean, you ok?" Sammy, who looked about sixteen now, asked.

Dean grimaced. "Yeah I'm fine, just a headache. Nothing to worry about."

"Oh, ok." Sammy still looked concerned.

"Right," Dean turned back to the angels, "Now who wants to learn how to operate a firearm?"

...spn...


	3. Chapter 3

...spn...

Dean had taken to mentoring a flock of angels surprisingly well, all things considered. True, he still did not consider himself a proper role model for morally ambiguous beings, but he had always been good with kids.

The former hunter might even say he was happy, if not for the periodic headaches, present ever since he gave up hunting, growing in frequency and severity as the months wore on. Dean tended to just ignore them and concentrate harder on whatever he was doing, but soon he found himself caving into the pressure behind his eyes and popping tylenol.

When that ceased to be effective, Lisa started to notice.

"Is it something left over from before?" she asked, her hand brushing his forehead.

Dean grunted, trying not to move.

"I think you should go to a doctor."

"M'fine," he mumbled. As if to prove his health, he pulled himself upright. "Think I'll go mow the lawn today."

Lisa sighed. "Don't overexert yourself."

Dean nodded, adjusted his short, and headed outside.

It was a sunny summer day, the kind that pasted sweat to a body if it moved too much. Dean reveled in the heat, carefully keeping his mind off the hotter places he'd been as he started up the mower.

He got through half the lawn before he decided to sit down. Half way to the porch he collapsed.

...spn...

"We're hurting you by living in your head."

Sammy, now not so little, sat across from him in what looked like Bobby's library.

Dean shrugged, leaning back into the rickety desk chair his dream provided. "Yeah, I figured that much out a while ago."

"Then why didn't you tell us to leave?" Sammy's face twisted into a scowl, trying desperately to understand.

Dan snorted. "Like I would throw a bunch of kids out on their asses when they had no where else to go!"

"But we're hurting you!"

"I can handle it."

"NO YOU CAN'T!" Sammy cried, face red eyes streaming. "We're killing you! I can't- I couldn't-" He latched onto the older man's chest. "I don't want to have killed my father!"

A warm bubble blossomed in Dean's chest. He laid a hand on the angel's head. "Hey, it's alright. I'm not going anywhere."

Sammy pulled back. "No, 'cuz I won't let you. I'm gonna take the Band somewhere else to live. I can take care of them all now."

Dean's heart fell despite himself. "If that's what you want."

Sammy shook his head. "No, but it's what you taught me was right."

They stood in silence.

"Where will you go? I know the newest bunch you found can barely fly yet."

Sammy shrugged. "I was thinking about doing that time traveling thing you told us about and hiding out somewhere in the sixties. Some of the others want to meet their namesakes in person. Ringo said something about invading Britain."

Dean smiled wistfully. "You kids stop by and visit, ok?"

"Well duh! I'm not some jerk with wings!" Sammy laughed, and vanished.

...spn...

A bright light shone through his eyelids and the smell of disinfectant stung his nostrils. Dean opened his eyes, and groaned at the white hospital walls around him.

"Hey there sleepy." Lisa sat on a chair beside him, fingers entwined with his own. "The doctors said it looked like you had heatstroke. Feeling better?"

He smiled and squeezed her hand. "Not really, but I'll carry on."

...spn...

**end!**

...spn...

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Mini omake:

Castiel sat in a field on a mountaintop watching the secret language of bees and flowers.

A presence made itself known behind him, but he didn't turn around.

"Hey there Uncle Cas!"

A tall figure loomed at the corner of his eye, casting a dark shadow over the flowers. The bees unhappily buzzed away. Pouting, the archangel had no choice but to look at the intruder of his solitude.

He was tall, and by human reckoning looked to be about twenty five. A silver shotgun etched with Enochian letters lay casually slung over his shoulder. He wore a faded pair of jeans and a black shirt with a name Castiel recognized from Dean's cassette collection under leather jacket.

"You're not Sam Winchester," he said immediately.

The Sam look alike smiled and shook his head. "Nope. I'm L. Sammy," he pointed over his shoulder, "and these are my siblings."

There was a rustle of feathers, and suddenly the clearing was full of jeans wearing strangers, all of whom held a mixture of pistols and riffles in place of the more traditional angelic short sword.

Castiel blinked.

"I was under the impression that there weren't this many of us left."

Sammy grinned. "Well we're not one of you- We're in the Band."

Castiel blinked again. "So what do you want from me?"

The younger angel's grin reflected on a thousand faces. "Well, we heard you were interested in an advisory position..."

...spn...

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**Author's Notes:**

Ok so I got inspired by that fic where angel's Grace is quantified as energy and the Winchesters and Cas go off trying to find Gabriel's lost grace to give Cas a power up.

In my universe, an angel's grace, aka 'Fluff Stuff', clings to the place where the angel died until enough energy collects to form another angel. Since previously all angels died in heaven, baby angels were born in heaven. Here 'The Band' is made up of angel's whose 'parents' died on earth (Gabriel, Anna, Uriel, random angel # 398, you get the idea), creating the first batch of earth born angels.

I've always loved Dean as a daddy fics, and thus this was born.

Referenced band members (as if Dean would name his children anything else):

Lead Zepplin band members: Jimmy Page, Robert Plant John Bonham, John Paul Jones. Black Sabbath: Tony Iommi Ozzy Osbourne Geezer Butler


End file.
